


So If You Don't Mind

by stellations



Category: Sanctuary (TV)
Genre: F/M, Need Brain Bleach, confusing adult emotions
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-01-15
Updated: 2017-02-06
Packaged: 2018-09-17 14:56:35
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 5
Words: 5,684
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9330317
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/stellations/pseuds/stellations
Summary: Post-series Magnus finally lets someone into her personal life and finds out what her staff thinks of it.





	1. But Every Step I Took Was Leading Me To You

**Author's Note:**

> Title from "Secondhand Heart" by Danny Gokey  
> 

It was the little things, really. The cup of tea that turned up on the desk in her new office or the wine bottle left in her bedroom. Though some time had passed since she'd gone and blown up her home, she was still healing and they both knew it. Her entire staff knew it and not just because they all felt it just as readily as she did. The hole that was left behind by the Big Guy, Helen's Old Friend, would yawn at each of them in its own way. No more smacks to the head, no more grunts. No more comforting presence in the middle of the night when she was still working but should have been sleeping. 

The part Helen regretted most of all about everything that had happened that last year was how thoroughly her Old Friend had gotten pulled into the middle and how she hadn't even been able to save him from it all. 

It wasn't the same when Nikola left her a cup of tea. He could read her moods better than anyone else and knew exactly which blend to drop on her desk ― chai if she were feeling good, earl grey if she felt pensive, peppermint if she were upset or needed to focus, something cinnamon if she needed a kick to the face ― but he rarely brought it to her while she could see him. She had a feeling that had as much to do with the staff as it did his desire not to be caught _caring_ overmuch. Even if she did know how much he cared for her. 

Like her tea echoed her moods, whatever bottle of wine she found always echoed his. Bordeaux seemed to be a decent indicator of his normal mood and she'd seen too many of those to count. The day he walked in with a bottle of Chablis in one hand and a Côtes du Rhône in the other, she knew she was in trouble. Humiliation and depression in equal measure did neither of them any good. Tonight's Chateau Margaux had her eyeing her desk the moment she walked into her bedroom. That could mean anything, but she had a feeling―

" _Really_ , Helen? You hid the wine glasses with the soap?" He appeared in the doorway to her bathroom, leaning against the frame with two glasses dangling from his hands and a look of distaste on his face. She knew it was fake.

"I was washing them. If you're upset with clean glasses, you could always drink from the bottle," she pointed out patiently as she shut the door behind her and moved to pull out something to wear to bed tonight from her dresser. He hadn't yet begun staying the night, but he certainly had taken to interrupting her nights enough that she figured it was only a matter of time before he _did_ stay the night. 

The face he made at her suggestion was priceless and it took all of her willpower not to laugh. "I will not be crass enough to even _entertain_ the idea."

Still keeping her expression carefully neutral, she pulled out something a little less cotton and a little more silk, throwing it over one arm as she brushed past him and into the bathroom. "No one's telling you to stay and make do with what's available."

"You're not telling me to leave, either," he pointed out, reflection smirking at her through the mirror. 

She ignored his comment, even though they both knew he was right. Up until their recent trip to Vienna, she had always kept clear lines between them. Since his reappearance in her life in 2008, they had picked up something of a dance. He would flirt and push just enough against her boundaries, she would entertain them both by engaging in a little banter, he would step onto that line she had drawn, she would tell him to stop in no uncertain terms, and he absolutely would. Every time. 

Then she had kissed him in the main lab of the Old City Sanctuary, disappeared in an explosion, taken him to Vienna after she reappeared, and let those walls and lines start blurring and falling when they got back home. Mostly it was little stolen kisses in her office or between the stacks in the library. Nothing big, not even in her bedroom. He would let himself in when she was settled for the night, they would talk, he would flirt, she would banter or barely flirt back, and eventually she would tell him she was tired and he would leave. 

Tonight, with that cup of cinnamon still on her tongue and the playful bottle flirting with her desk, she thought she might change the rules a bit. 

Hanging her nightclothes up on the hook by the closet in her bathroom, she slipped the clasp on her necklace, set it aside, and then pulled off her bracelets and earrings. Under the guise of putting her jewelry away, she set those pieces aside and picked up the wine bottle in their place. As she turned back to see Nikola, she waved it flirtatiously between them before brushing past him. His smirk was still in place, but underneath it she could practically feel the note of confusion present. He had no idea what she was planning and for all that she knew he loved that about her personality, this time and in this location presented too many questions to be going on with. 

"Well, if you're not going to force me to drink from the bottle, you may as well bring those glasses over," she commented in an effort to quiet him before he brought any of those questions up. 

He acquiesced to her request, setting the glasses on the long counter top where the sinks were. "You'll need me to open the bottle, too, unless you're hiding something from me." The smirk he flashed her was entirely too flirtatious.

She rolled her eyes in return, handing him the bottle as though he were the single-most frustrating person on the planet. As he cracked open the cork and poured them two glasses, she pulled out towels ― of which she fully expected him to realize there were two ― and set them out on a chair by the ivory-colored bathtub, motioning for Nikola to set the glasses on the tub's ledge behind the faucet. He eyed her, but didn't move. Sighing as though he really were a frustrating Abnormal she couldn't convince to cooperate, she plucked the glasses from his hands, marveled at the way his eyebrows migrated almost to his hairline, and gently deposited the wine onto the ledge.

"Helen, you could have just―"

She turned and twined her fingers into the lapels of his jacket.

"―asked me to―"

"Shut up and kiss me," she breathed hotly, as their lips crashed together. 

His surprise was easy to feel in the slight pause, a half second's hiccup more than anything, before his arms wrapped around her and he returned the kiss in full force. Her fingers worked at his jacket, shoving the shoulders down as far as possible before she attacked the buttons on his vest and shirt. As he deepened the kiss, encouraging her lips to part for him, she tried to remember how to breathe. The last person she did anything like this with was Charlotte Benoit and that was months ago. Before that... Over a century. She hadn't wanted to let herself get close to anyone, even on a one-night basis, for fear that she would slip and affect the timeline. At this point, she was so starved for attention and affection of any kind that Nikola's touches felt like electric shocks.

Which, she reflected as his lips migrated to her neck, they might well have been, given his electromagnetism. 

"Helen... Helen," he gasped finally, breaking away just far enough to be able to see her. She could tell she'd had an effect on him given the fact that he was currently staring at her with a combination of wonder and confusion. Maybe even hope and wariness. Not that she could blame him. "Are you sure? About this?"

"When have I ever done something I wasn't sure of?"

"I can think of a few times―"

"Related to intimacy with another person."

"―but not like this," he finished, one hand migrating to very, very gently push her hair back behind her ear. Reverently, like he did most everything with her. 

"I need a bath, Nikola," she told him, as though it were the most obvious thing in the world. "You brought me wine to drink tonight. Whatever happens around or during those two events..." She shrugged. "I'm willing to leave that up to chance."

So she said. Like as not, she would steer the ship, so to speak, and he knew that as well. 

For a few seconds, he seemed to wage an internal war with himself. As those seconds faded with the look of wonder on his face, he reached up with both hands this time, cupped her cheeks, and tugged her back for another crushing kiss. It didn't last nearly as long as the other, but was no less heated. Eventually, she drew a warm bath for both of them and they settled into the tub, Nikola resting behind her with one arm wrapped around her and Helen leaning her back against him. A good deal of her things had met the floor in unfortunate ways; luckily, nothing had broken, though there were close calls. Being who he was, Nikola had saved the wine, clearly the important fact, and now they nursed those glasses while resting in the tub. 

Nikola's excuse for kissing her senseless was that he needed to get that awful cinnamon taste out of her mouth, to which she had pointed out that he was responsible for that cinnamon taste, given the cup of tea he had left on the desk in her office. He accused her of stifling him, she threw the last of her wine back, and then she wrapped a hand around the back of his neck and tilted his head down to capture his lips yet again. It was his turn to pluck the glass from her hand, setting them down on the floor so he could properly kiss her. Gently this time. Reverently. 

_I love you, Nikola Tesla,_ she found her mind offering up and a secretive smile crossed her face as she settled back around. Leaning her head against his chest, she allowed her eyes to slide shut. His arms slipped around her in the water and she felt his head rest against hers. She might not be able to say it just yet and chances were that the words wouldn't come for some time yet, but she did love him. She loved him more than she could say. 

Which was why she let words fall to the wayside, simply reveling in something she had not allowed herself in far, far too long. It really was the simple things she enjoyed the most.


	2. Brain Bleach

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Henry really didn't need those mental images.

Henry’s nose didn’t lie to him. Ever since he had learned to accept his HAP side, he’d taken to using his nose to track things and people down. People like Robbie and Erika or those creepy little light-bending Abnormals Worth liked so much. But lately it had started telling him when and where Tesla was around. The vampire had a very specific smell and a lot of it was the wine he trailed behind him, but it alerted Henry more and more to his presence in the new Sanctuary. 

One such time, Henry was making his way to see Magnus about something related to the new intakes. Their talk wasn’t very long, but he found himself distracted the entire time. _Why_ was he smelling Tesla so strongly right now? The man wasn’t even in the room! He’d left that morning for the surface for… Henry didn’t even know what. Magnus was probably the only one who did and it didn’t even matter. The point was that the guy was gone.

So why was his scent so strong?

“Henry?”

Henry started, wincing guiltily. “Yeah, sorry, Doc. I’m a little distracted.”

Magnus eyed him with no small measure of concern. “Distracted by what?”

“It’s probably nothing. This whole room just reeks of Tesla.” He took another sniff reflexively, frowning. “Wait, no… _you_ do. Why do you smell like Tesla? He’s not even here.”

It was Magnus’ turn to look guilty. “Ah…”

Henry stared at her, resigning himself to being set up somehow. “He’s not like hiding back here or something, is here?”

“No, he definitely left.”

“Then why…” The proverbial lightbulb went off in Henry’s head. “Oh… Oh no. Magnus, you’re not…. He’s not…”

She winced again. “I’m afraid so.” 

“Why Tesla?” he asked, pinching the bridge of his nose as if that would help him wrap his head around this new information. “I mean, this is like finding out your mother has sex _and_ it’s with someone who’s a dick.”

“I could make a case that he _has_ one―”

“That’s okay! I don’t need to hear that! I’m just… I’m gonna go clean my brain out. I really don’t want to picture that. Or that!”

The images floating around in his head intensified and he nearly whimpered. If only brain bleach actually existed. With his hands over his ears, he darted from the room as her voice wafted around behind him: 

“Sorry, Henry!”


	3. You Can't Play A Player

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Kate gets a little tracking in.

Kate knew there was something going on almost the second she walked back into the Underground Sanctuary for a visit. The reason she had come was to relay news to Magnus about the reconstruction of Hollow Earth and the Hyper-Abnormals’ states of being. The reason she _stayed_ was because of Tesla.

The man was being sneaky, sneakier than usual. She caught him walking into Magnus’ new office no less than five times while Magnus was definitely out and always with a tea cup in hand. Frowning at about the third time, she decided to track him. He emerged without a tea cup in hand, which she definitely made note of. Letting him get a little bit ahead of her, she poked her head into the office. Magnus was still out, but the tea cup was definitely on her desk now. 

Weird. It was like a little gift a schoolboy would give to the girl he was crushing on when she wasn’t looking. 

Tesla made his way back to his lab, where he seemed to spend most of his day. When Kate finally spied him leaving, he had a bottle of wine under his arm. Some claret or Bordeaux, she thought. It was hard to get a look at the label. Giving him a head start, she tracked him down to the residential wing, eyebrows rising to the sky as she watched him turn the doorknob to Magnus’ bedroom and slip inside. 

“What the ever-loving hell,” Kate muttered.

The next day featured much the same and the day after. When she had more or less figured out a pattern, she made her way to Magnus’ office, closing the door behind her with a decisive thunk. Magnus glanced up at her, a frown creasing her face as Kate strode forward, arms crossed over her chest. 

“Something wrong, Kate?” Magnus asked mildly. “I didn’t expect you to stay so long.”

“Curiosity,” Kate answered with that tone of hers usually reserved for someone she was trying to screw over, someone she had the upper hand with. “Like why Tesla is hanging around for so long.”

“He came back from his latest disappearance just before you arrived.”

Kate had expected that. Moving her hands to her hips, she shook her head slightly. She never had been afraid to confront someone about something she thought was detrimental. Not even the woman who had taken her in what felt like ages ago. 

“Admit it, Magnus. You’re sleeping with Tesla.”

Magnus looked fairly scandalized, which Kate had expected. 

“We’re not sleeping together, Kate, and I’ll thank you not to go spreading that around.”

“Then what _are_ you doing? And don’t tell me it’s nothing.”

Magnus seemed to war with herself for a moment before she sighed heavily and glanced away. “We’re seeing each other. We’re… trying to see how things might work between us.”

“I knew it.”

“How did you figure it out?”

“Oh, come on,” Kate huffed, like she was almost insulted that Magnus had to ask. “I’ve been visiting for four days. I’ve seen him sneak into your office five times and your bedroom all three nights. You can’t lay one over on a thief. I know all the tricks.”

A laugh escaped Magnus and she shook her head. Really, she should have known better than to try to keep this a secret from Kate. 

For a few seconds, Kate just shook her head in return, her mind refusing to accept the idea that Magnus was at all involved with Tesla. She would worry, definitely; Magnus and Tesla’s relationship until now wasn’t exactly hung with roses and diamonds. But as she turned over the promise bracelet still on one wrist, Kate thought that maybe they wouldn’t be so bad. It was weird as _hell_ to think and she mentally blanched. Dating Garris had made her question a lot of things.

“Well, as long as Tesla doesn’t go breaking your heart or making trust fund baby vampires again, then I won’t have to worry about finding a way to kill him,” she tossed over her shoulder as she turned to leave. Pausing at the doorway, she glanced back at Magnus. “Oh… and if your tea cup ends up with coffee in it one day… it’s not my fault.”

Grinning to herself at the idea of messing with Tesla a little bit while she was here, Kate left Magnus looking utterly stricken. She would try not to make her boss suffer for her shenanigans, but with Tesla involved, all bets were off.


	4. Every Time

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Will's "freaky eyeballs" told him things he never wanted to know.

Their return from Vienna was his first clue. Magnus was bruised. Not in the way that suggested she’d been hurt again ― no more getting thrown into tables or hit on the head ― but her lips were swollen. No one else would’ve noticed it, but Will’s eyes zeroed in because they were out of place. He could think of something that would cause that, but it wasn’t a something he was pleased to have cross his mind. Oh, they’d had the talk about intimate liaisons before and Will was no stranger to the idea of Magnus wanting or needing some time off for that. In fact, he would’ve encouraged her in any other context. The only problem here was the other person involved. 

Magnus and the Magnet. It was unbelievable. 

Will padded to her office one afternoon, knowing full well that she wasn’t around. She was off in the new main lab, checking on some of the more hostile recent intakes, though she was due back within the hour. It was eerie how closely she had modeled this Sanctuary after her other. Her office was almost the same and somehow she had managed to move everyone’s important crap out before the big bang. Will knew that because his baseball was in his office and Henry’s gaming consoles were in a new lab with his computers when they got the grand tour. 

Walking into this office gave him something to work on and figure out. He didn’t know what he was looking for, just that he needed to find anything that was out of the ordinary. The fact that this room looked so much like her other one meant that his job was a lot easier than it could have been. It was also a good thing that he knew her so well. He knew what to look out for.

Slowly moving further into the room, he found his attention drawn to the picture hanging on the wall to the left of the door. At some point, it had tilted slightly off center. Magnus must not have noticed. But what had distracted her so much that she wouldn’t have fixed it? Turning along the pathway through her office, his eyes immediately took in the cup of tea on her desk. Cinnamon, judging by the smell. The cup was still full and a brief brush of his fingers against the body told him that it was completely cold. 

Magnus had left a cup of tea. More importantly, she had let a cup of tea go _cold_. That was even less like her than the picture with a corner pointed at the floor. By the time Magnus made her way back into the room, Will had taken a full picture of the office and made his own conclusions about what had happened not an hour prior. 

“Will?”

He paused, gathering himself for what he knew would not be the most pleasant conversation they’d ever had. Not the worst, but definitely not the best. 

“Is there anything you’d like to tell me, Magnus?”

She looked surprised and mildly taken aback. Good. Not that he wanted to push her and have a fight over this, but she at least needed to know that he wasn’t kidding around about this. He was done with her secrets.

“About what?”

Pulling together his observations, he turned towards her and laid it all out, giving her the chance to come clean. He really hoped she would.

“This office is a wreck, Magnus,” he began, running a hand over his face. “It’s not like you. There’s a picture by the door that’s a half inch off center, like someone knocked into it, either on their way in or on their way out. Or while something else was happening in here. Whatever happened in here must have been big because you let a cup of tea go _cold_. It’s still sitting on your desk and I’d bet it hasn’t been warm in hours. There’s a corner of the rug that’s wrinkled and turned up, likely because of someone lying on it. Oh… and your pencil got knocked off your desk and slid halfway to the door.”

He’d picked up the pencil, but it was the only piece of evidence that had been moved. Everything else was exactly as he had found it and he pointed out each as he spoke. 

“So, you look me in the eye, Magnus, and tell me you were down in the main lab with the intakes.”

She opened her mouth, looking for all the world like she wanted to deny it. His eyebrows rose nearly to his hairline, _daring_ her to deny it. She seemed to think better of it, paused, and then offered something entirely unexpected.

“I was. Just… not for the entire hour.”

This was definitely going in places Will decidedly did not want. 

“Then where the hell were you?”

“I think you already know.”

“No.” He lifted his index finger in her direction. “No, no, no. You don’t get to be cagey with me. Not after last year.”

“Nikola and I were enjoying a bottle of wine in his bedroom.”

“Magnus…”

“What do you want me to say, Will?”

Resignation coloring his entire being, Will rubbed a hand across his face again. “That you’re sleeping with Tesla.”

“I’m not.”

Her answer was so firm that Will was the one taken aback this time. “You’re… not?”

“Not as of yet, no.”

The idea that they might want to in the future was almost worse than the idea that they had in the past. “So, the picture being knocked around and the rug curling up?”

Magnus winced slightly, her expression turning apologetic. “I’m sure you understand how intense ‘making out’ can be.”

Yeah Will definitely did. 

“Why Tesla? Hasn’t he done enough? Have you forgotten that he’s the king of hidden agendas? Don’t you think he might be playing you?” Really, it was enough to make his head hurt. Of all the people Magnus could have chosen and suddenly she’s making out with Tesla. 

“I haven’t forgotten, Will. I don’t expect you to understand―”

“At least try to explain it to me because right now I’m convinced that you’ve hit your head and lost all memory of _everything he’s done_ to you.”

“I don’t need to explain myself―”

“Please, Magnus. Please. Try.” Will was tired of her secrets and evasion, tired of being pushed away, tired of her not understanding that he cared. She could trust him; she just never tried. And now suddenly she was trusting Tesla?

“I remember everything he’s done just as well as you do,” Magnus began with a tone of voice Will had rarely heard from her. There was heart buried in her voice, actual emotion that he hadn’t heard from her in a long time. It was that more than her words that made him listen. “But I also remember his intelligence, his compassion. He challenges me, Will, in science and everything professional that we do. In our personal lives… _nothing_ we have done has been without my consent or suggestion. He has never once pushed me. Everything we do is on my terms.”

“Magnus…” 

What Will was protesting at this point, even he didn’t really know. Maybe it was the fact that his mentor was getting it on with someone he couldn’t stand, someone he was sure was just going to screw her over again and again and again. Maybe it was the simple fact that he didn’t like Tesla and the idea of the vampire being around more and more because he was involved with Magnus left a sour taste in his mouth. 

“Just… promise me you’ll be careful.” It was all he could ask of her at this point. It was too late to ask her to stop and he knew she wouldn’t agree even if he wanted to. 

A smirk crossed her face, slowly carving its way through her lips and into her eyes, and he knew he would have his work cut out for him in dealing with this mess.

“I always am.”

Yeah. Bullshit. 

As if to punctuate that thought, Will turned to head back out of her office, tossing over his shoulder, “Every time, Magnus. Every time!”


	5. That It's Not Brand New

"Are you coming to bed sometime in the next century?"

Helen glanced at the doorway from her bathroom to her bedroom and shot Nikola a mild glare. He'd been watching her for the last five minutes, arms crossed over his bare chest. The towel wrapped around his waist did little to hide what she now knew the shape of underneath, but she decided she liked this look on him all the same. The look on his face was his usual broad grin, the one that told her he clearly wasn't taking anything seriously. 

"Unlike you, I actually have to dry my hair," she pointed out, picking up the hairdryer and turning it onto the proper setting.

Nikola chose that moment to pad over to her and pluck the hairdryer out of her hands. "You don't have to do everything, Helen," he commented as he set about running his hand through her hair while the other whisked the hairdryer over it.

She had a feeling he was making a comment about her life, but she decided she didn't care much today; it wasn't worth going into. Instead, she smoothed her silk nightdress, shrugging her shoulders slightly under the towel keeping her dry. His touch was gentle, yet confident, and despite her hair's penchant for tangling, he managed to avoid pulling at it. By the end, her eyes had slid shut as she enjoyed the heat and the miniature scalp massage he was giving her as he worked. If this was what it would be like, being intimate with Nikola Tesla, Helen found she did not care in the least. 

Her eyes fluttered open again as the sound of the hairdryer died off. Nikola set it aside and unplugged it, resettling himself behind her and threading his arms around her waist. She leaned back against his chest, resting her arms over his as she let a fond and entirely content smile slip across her face. A long time had passed since she had allowed herself to relax like this. She hadn't honestly even been like this with Charlotte Benoit; that night had been wonderful in its own right, but humming in the back of her mind was her mission as well as the knowledge that their relationship could not be allowed to last beyond that one night, the latter of which Charlotte had been aware of as well. Here, with Nikola, nothing stood in Helen's way and for as long as she could convince her mind to let her rest, she would do just that and enjoy the time she had with him.

She suspected he had something similar in mind as his hands migrated slowly to massage her breasts, hidden under the silk nightdress she had been planning to wear to bed tonight. At this rate, she wouldn't be wearing _anything_ to bed and that seemed to be the logical conclusion to everything. 

"They know about us," she informed him in between hitches in her breath at his touches. She didn't even bother to tell him that she meant her staff. He knew her well enough to pick that out without her saying it. "They've suspected we were sleeping together for a few weeks now. I had to correct them."

"Well, I suppose you'll have to take that back now, won't you?" Nikola pointed out, dipping his head to taste the skin at her neck. 

She couldn't help the sound he dragged up from her, fighting hard to stay afloat in the sea of emotions he was pulling from her. "I am not... telling them the details of our personal life," she retorted. "We're seeing each other. That's all they need to know. If they figure it out for sure this time, we'll see about it then, but for now—" She cut herself off as she finally managed to disentangle herself from his clutches, turning to wrap her arms around his neck. "For now, I'm perfectly content to keep you all to myself."

His grin turned more into a smile at that, a fond one, something only for her and a sight that she would treasure for the rest of her years. "I don't mind being yours, Helen Magnus," he told her reverently as he lifted one hand to brush aside her newly-dried and still-warm hair. 

"Good." She paused for a few seconds before leaning in to kiss him, letting it linger as long as she dared. "I love you, Nikola Tesla," she murmured against his lips. 

_That_ seemed to startle him right out of their kiss and he pulled back to stare at her. For a few seconds she thought she might have completely lost him with that and her own smile had begun to fade by the time he found his voice again.

"I won't ask if you meant it; you never say things like that if you don't mean them. But Helen..." He paused again, seeming to search for the right words. She remained silent, giving him the time to find those words. " _Never_ did I think I would ever hear you say that."

"Perhaps it's time I did, then," she commented, tilting her head playfully at him. "I didn't really have a chance in that last year before we came down here. Or, more precisely, I didn't _take_ the chance. I suppose it was building up for a while."

He seemed at a loss for words, something she took great pride in having accomplished. Nikola was not the type of person to tire of hearing himself speak. To be able to rip the words right out of his mouth was a great achievement. 

"I love you, Nikola," she repeated, leaning in conspiratorially before she finally pulled back. Reaching for one of his hands, she threaded her fingers through his and gently pulled him through the bathroom door — hitting the light switch on her way, of course. 

"I'll never tire of hearing you say that," he teased as they climbed up onto the bed together. 

"Mmmm I've one more thing for you," she murmured, pushing him onto his back and leaning over him. Her face softened into a playful smirk as she watched his face for his reaction to her next offer. "Hotel Miraflores in 1902? You were right. That was me."

And before he could protest or complain about her lies and everything else, she kissed him hard enough to make an indentation in the duvet. Luckily, he didn't need to breathe and they both knew it, so the hands that tangled themselves in her hair were merely to keep her in place, not to push her away. She kept the kiss going, deepening it at every turn, until she had to pause for breath. Only then did he hold her up away from him, letting out a soft laugh of amusement tinged with wonder.

"Helen Magnus, you devious sneak," he huffed, his grin the only sign that he was more amused than irritated. 

She laughed and dipped her head to kiss him again. He needed no response from her. Just the simple admission that he had been right about her past exploits was enough for both of them. Besides, it was the perfect continuation of their centuries-long dance. The line he had to push had been pulled in a different direction, but she still had tricks up her sleeve, cards to play that he never saw coming. This admission was only one such card.

They always did like to keep each other on their toes and, as his hands migrated under her nightdress to tease her sensitive skin, she thought she could really get used to being this relaxed in the presence of someone else. Nikola was good for her, despite what her staff would say on the subject. She trusted him and she loved him. What more did she really need?


End file.
